France was urging Middle Eastern countries to stop boycotting French products to protest against President Emmanuel Macron, who stood firm that the European country would not renounce caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

It can be learned that boycott calls were happening in Libya, Syria, Jordan, Qatar, and Kuwait after citizens were irked by Macron’s approval of showing cartoons of the prophet.

The issue stemmed from the gruesome beheading of French teacher Samuel Paty who showed cartoons of the prophet while in class.

During a ceremony in honor of Paty, Macron said: “Samuel Paty was killed because Islamists want our future, and they know that with quiet heroes such as him they can never have it.”

In a Twitter post on Sunday, he also said that France “will not give in, ever.”

“We respect all differences in a spirit of peace. We do not accept hate speech and defend reasonable debate. We will always be on the side of human dignity and universal values,” he added.

French goods were said to be stripped from shops in Jordan, Qatar, and Kuwait.

BBC quoted the French foreign ministry as saying that the calls were “baseless” and being pushed by a radical minority.

“These calls for boycott are baseless and should stop immediately, as well as all attacks against our country, which are being pushed by a radical minority,” the statement read.

Depictions of Prophet Muhammad are a serious offense to Muslims. They consider such an act blasphemous as Islamic traditions explicitly forbid images of Muhammad and Allah.

“All French products have been removed from all Consumer Cooperative Societies,” said Fahd Al-Kishti, head of an organization, in an interview with Reuters.

He added that the move was in response to “repeated insults” against the prophet and had been taken independently of Kuwait’s government.

On Sunday, a hashtag calling for the boycott of French supermarket retailer Carrefour was the second most trending topic.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation on Friday decried the brutal murder that has shaken France but also criticized the “justification for blasphemy-based harassment of any religion in the name of freedom of expression.”